The
Information Age
The network infrastructure
that has evolved in the last few decades, along with standards and protocols,
has brought in a significant change - it has made the Information Age so
last millennium. In the information
age the focus was mainly on creating and distributing information. That is
changing.
The
Participation Age
The world is now in the
Participation Age, where information does not take center stage, but human
interaction does. This can be seen
commonly in the way the internet is used today. Participation is happening all around us, in the way people shop
(bazee.com, ebay, etc.), generate knowledge (wikipedia), share ideas (Weblogs),
and most significantly, share their work (Opensource and free software).
Eliminating
the Digital Divide
Participation means
interacting or sharing. When you
participate, you become an active, sharing member of a community. Your participation creates ideas,
information, opportunities, entertainment and value - social and economic -
everywhere on the network.
In order for more people to
participate, it is important that we destroy barriers to use of technology. When we do that, more people will be able to
participate in solving more problems - the biggest problems!
Opensource
and Free Software
It is not uncommon to see
more and more technology companies willing to share their solutions to grow
communities, to increase participation.
OpenSolaris, Linux, and the various other distributions of opensource
Unix Operating system are great examples of software that is both open source
and free. And believe me, opensource is
not limited to Operating System software.
Opensource software creates
a community of developers and changes the landscape of software development,
while free software changes the landscape of how software has been
traditionally made available and used.
Software that is free and
opensource, not only allows users to ‘try' out the product, but also allows
those that are curious to see how a module is written. As "The Hindu" once proclaimed, "It is a
test where copying is allowed!"
Impact
of opensource and free software
To
understand the impact of the above on the industry and communities, we need to
understand the profile of the users in different segments - developers and
buyers.
Developers
include students, free-lancers and engineers that work for enterprises.
Developers
working for enterprises carry a significant influence on the decisions made on
investments in computing infrastructure, by enterprises they work for. Students play a crucial role in the shaping
of the future of software, through their affinity to the kind of software they
start their academic careers on, by carrying them forward into their
professional careers. Both kind, thus,
wield enormous influence on the future of software and services developed and
delivered.
Buyers
are the small, medium and large enterprises, primarily using the network to
deliver a service, whether it's a financial service, telecommunications
service, a social or defense service for the government, or a search service
from an internet company. These
companies innovate continuously on their products, services and processes,
which directly impact their value proposition, by giving them the flexibility
to choose the best solutions available, and in turn reducing their TCO.
One clear benefit of free
and opensource software is the ability for software from various sources to
interoperate and integrate. Interoperability
is a key requirement for the Participation Age. Opensource stacks and platforms are now popular for application
development. Instead of such
applications becoming islands of automation, they interoperate across
boundaries thus making communities, enterprises and organizations to move to a
service oriented next generation web (Web 2.0).
Impact
of open source and free software on the Indian IT industry
Choice
fosters innovation. With the opening up
of software code on the internet, the scope for Indian businesses, government
agencies and individual developers to experiment and innovate, increases
exponentially, thus increasing the potential of inventing and delivering the
best services and solutions.
Standards can be set by
government bodies that include choice, ensure accessibility, usability and
availability of the high quality software solutions. With the dramatic expansion of the Indian IT industry, there
cannot be a more opportune moment than this for enterprises, government(s) and
academic institutions to participate and create value for the country's
technological development and growth.
Imagine all the country's
documents stored in a format that is proprietary and closed. What is the impact to the country if we need
to pay a license fee to open our own documents? The Open Document Format (ODF) for example is invaluable in
keeping our documents accessible to our citizens no matter what document reader
you use.
As I mentioned above, it is
not only the big enterprises that can benefit from the participation age and
open, free software, but also, in fact particularly, the small and startup
enterprises that can use, share and create more value, not only to the
community, but also the society, industry and economy - because of the lack of
the "legacy" baggage. They can afford
to start clean!
Emerging markets such as
India are the future of innovation in the software industry. The emerging ISVs and System Integrators in
India need an open unencumbered platform to implement their innovation or risk
losing ownership over the innovation to a proprietary platform. A free and open source platform helps keep
the cost of innovation low while helping scale the opportunity for developers
and enterprises in India.
Perils
of open source and Free Software
Frankly, I think, "Perilous
Opensource Software" is an oxymoron! Openness creates value. It is not uncommon to see that defects and
issues in software get resolved at a faster pace and with high quality through
participation, due to the power of sharing.
Discomforts around Security and Usability of open source
software are usually unfounded, since communities develop a discipline of their
own, which provide the requisite hardening.
The only entities that
worry about free and open source software are the vendors that depend on closed
and proprietary software for their business success. Clearly, they have been forced to adapt to the new reality of the
Participation Age.
Barriers
to participation:
There are two main barriers
that keep people from participating on the network: The price of access to the network and the price of the device
you use to access the network. With the
advancements in networking infrastructure, resulting in lower costs of
operations, the above barrier is rapidly disintegrating.
But
more fundamentally, level of readiness to accept this drastically different
paradigm of software development, has the potential of acting as a taller
barrier and requires a shift of mind.
This is where product companies and existing community members play a
key role. They provide the opportunity,
create the infrastructure and educate developers on the benefits of sharing,
participation and community based development, through developer conferences,
"Birds of Feather" sessions, student engagements, etc.
Wait No More!
In
closing, there is a tremendous opportunity out there for academic institutions,
students, service providers, developers, government bodies and thought leaders
of our country to create and add value in ways that we have not known before -
through participation on the network.
With the growth in the networking infrastructure in our country, it is
almost ineffective to not participate.
With
that I would like to leave the reader with this thought. If you are a developer, and if you are not
participating, pause, and think, "Why Not?".
If
you are not blogging, blog. If you are
not downloading software, download. If you are not uplodaing software, upload.
If you are not participating,.. PARTICIPATE!
This article has been co
authored by Nageswara Rao,Director, Operating Platforms Group, Vijay Anand,
Vice President, India Engineering Center and
Sun Microsystems India Pvt Ltd. E mail feedback to
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Issue
BG62 May06
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